Thomas Jefferson is in the news again, nearly 200 years after his death—alongside a high-profile biography by the journalist Jon Meacham comes a damning portrait of the third president by the independent scholar Henry Wiencek.

We are endlessly fascinated with Jefferson, in part because we seem unable to reconcile the rhetoric of liberty in his writing with the reality of his slave owning and his lifetime support for slavery. {snip}

Neither Mr. Meacham, who mostly ignores Jefferson’s slave ownership, nor Mr. Wiencek, who sees him as a sort of fallen angel who comes to slavery only after discovering how profitable it could be, seem willing to confront the ugly truth: the third president was a creepy, brutal hypocrite.

Contrary to Mr. Wiencek’s depiction, Jefferson was always deeply committed to slavery, and even more deeply hostile to the welfare of blacks, slave or free. His proslavery views were shaped not only by money and status but also by his deeply racist views, which he tried to justify through pseudoscience.

There is, it is true, a compelling paradox about Jefferson: when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, announcing the “self-evident” truth that all men are “created equal,” he owned some 175 slaves. {snip}

But while many of his contemporaries, including George Washington, freed their slaves during and after the revolution—inspired, perhaps, by the words of the Declaration—Jefferson did not. Over the subsequent 50 years, a period of extraordinary public service, Jefferson remained the master of Monticello, and a buyer and seller of human beings.

Rather than encouraging his countrymen to liberate their slaves, he opposed both private manumission and public emancipation. Even at his death, Jefferson failed to fulfill the promise of his rhetoric: his will emancipated only five slaves, all relatives of his mistress Sally Hemings, and condemned nearly 200 others to the auction block. Even Hemings remained a slave, though her children by Jefferson went free.

{snip} Known for expansive views of citizenship, he proposed legislation to make emancipated blacks “outlaws” in America, the land of their birth. Opposed to the idea of royal or noble blood, he proposed expelling from Virginia the children of white women and black men.

Jefferson also dodged opportunities to undermine slavery or promote racial equality. As a state legislator he blocked consideration of a law that might have eventually ended slavery in the state.

As president he acquired the Louisiana Territory but did nothing to stop the spread of slavery into that vast “empire of liberty.” Jefferson told his neighbor Edward Coles not to emancipate his own slaves, because free blacks were “pests in society” who were “as incapable as children of taking care of themselves.” {snip}

Jefferson claimed he had “never seen an elementary trait of painting or sculpture” or poetry among blacks and argued that blacks’ ability to “reason” was “much inferior” to whites’, while “in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.” He conceded that blacks were brave, but this was because of “a want of fore-thought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present.”

A scientist, Jefferson nevertheless speculated that blackness might come “from the color of the blood” and concluded that blacks were “inferior to the whites in the endowments of body and mind.”

Jefferson did worry about the future of slavery, but not out of moral qualms. After reading about the slave revolts in Haiti, Jefferson wrote to a friend that “if something is not done and soon done, we shall be the murderers of our own children.” But he never said what that “something” should be.

In 1820 Jefferson was shocked by the heated arguments over slavery during the debate over the Missouri Compromise. He believed that by opposing the spread of slavery in the West, the children of the revolution were about to “perpetrate” an “act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world.”

Share This

We welcome comments that add information or perspective, and we encourage polite debate. If you log in with a social media account, your comment should appear immediately. If you prefer to remain anonymous, you may comment as a guest, using a name and an e-mail address of convenience. Your comment will be moderated.

Francis Galton

I don’t quite see where Mr. Jefferson was incorrect. To wit, non-PC scientific inquiries into “average” racial personality suggest that TJ was on to something when he noted that “blacks lacked basic human emotions.” Now, that’s not quite true, but it hardly escapes notice that blacks, for example, are far more lustful and far less romantic than are Whites, and that they are far less appreciative of and moved by beautiful, transcendent works of art (Detroit’s art museum, anyone?).

The lack of black achievement in STEM fields anywhere at any point in history strongly suggests that they are deficient in several cognitive abilities, especially abstract thinking (their ability to reason, as Jefferson would have it.) Furthermore, with regard to black cultural achievement, any honest musician, for instance, will concede that European classical music is far superior in nearly every way (except perhaps as a “reproductive soundtrack,” shall we say) when compared to African jungle music–which is basically just percussion and simple wind instruments, at best.

Black reliance on White economic largesse–everything from foreign aid to food stamps–suggests that, from a first world perspective, blacks are in some sense child-like and incapable of taking care of themselves.

There are a number of other things that could be said, but clearly the only reason TJ’s remarks seem outrageous is because of the current socio-political climate. I would say that many Whites even today secretly feel similarly about blacks, but perhaps not as strongly. The evidence is all around us….

ATBOTL

“Paul Finkelman”

The usual suspects are at it again.

Anyway, look what our old friend, former Amren commissar, Ian Jobling is up too:

Anyone surprised? It was clear to many that this man was NEVER really on our side.

In this interview, he suggests that his involvement with WN was due to outrage over the suppression of ideas rather than actual racial loyalty — something Jobling never appeared to have.

Let this be a lesson for WN’s: We need to be very careful with getting involved with “race realists.” Many of these people are indifferent or even hostile to white interests. Their motivation for being interested in race may be very different from ours.

asketh

Exactly what I thought, the real fifth column.

razorrare

I am surprized…i wasnt aware of it…i have read Ian Joblings articles,such as “Corporate Altruism” and found them very well written…i have always wondered why i hadnt seen any more newer columns or articles by Ian here at Amren…now i know and i thank you for that…moral of the story i guess is this…never invite a liberal into your home…i guess anyone who critizises Jewish power and Influence is an anti-semite according to Ian,much like anyone who critizises black power & influence is a racist…I dont consider David Duke or Kevin Mcdonald to be anti-semites…Telling certain truths may be ugly but it is necessary,it is certainly not anti-semetic…he probably knows better but has shaken hands with the devil to improve his financial lot in life…both Duke & Mcdonald have praised Jewish writers & others who have exposed certain truths about the power & influence of small jewish elite,never have i once read or heard them say that all jews are terrible people.

http://www.newnation.org/ sbuffalonative

Mr. Jobling wrote about Competitive Altruism but his thesis was wrong.

It’s not competitive altruism, it’s Preemptive Altruism,

Businesses and individuals aren’t competing to outdo each other in shows of kindness. They’re merely taking preemptive action to not appear racist.

People and businesses know their lifes’ work can be destroyed by a whisper campaign so they make grand public shows of their alleged altruism so that they can protect themselves from future lawsuits.

That’s why CEO make a big show of announcing minority candidates for corporate positions. They’re not compete to be altruistic; they’re trying to fend off accusations of racism.

razorrare

About 5 months ago there was discussion here on an Article piececalled Pathological Altruism…in it i deposited this response…

There are several theories proposed to explain this. One, argued by Kevin MacDonald, is that Jews have had a corrosive effect on white group identity. Jews, he argues, have promoted intellectual systems, such as Freudianism, Marxism, and deconstruction that pathologize expressions of white group identity, such as Christianity, patriotism, and traditional family life. He writes that Jews have made movies and television programs that ridicule Christianity and patriotism, and have been among the most powerful advocates of immigration and liberalization in America. They support pro-minority activism of all kinds. Jews, according to this theory, have helped equate any expression of white self-interest with “fascism.” “Generosity Bestowing her Gifts” (1734), by Giovanni Tiepolo. Another explanation of the white race’s lack of a sense of its interests is Jared Taylor’s theory about white altruism, which he outlined in his American Renaissance article, “The Ways of Our People” (Sept. and Oct. 1996). Mr. Taylor believes whites have a unique sense of reciprocity and an inclination to acknowledge the points of view and the interests of other people. He cites the humane treatment of enemy soldiers and rules of sportsmanship that value generosity towards competitors more highly than beating them.Mr. Taylor argues that the distinguishing and desirable features of Western civilization are based on this deep sense of reciprocity. The elimination of hereditary class status gives everyone an equal chance. Democracy is the belief that the other person’s political preferences ought to count as much as one’s own. Freedom of expression requires the protection of opposing viewpoints. Thus, the generosity whites show towards other races is an extension of this inherent generosity.While Prof. MacDonald’s and Mr. Taylor’s theories may go part of the way in explaining white behavior, they do not fully account…

Now my memory is not as good as it used to be but Ian’s article was a 2or 3 part article and i believe it was him that stated those who shout out the most and loudest for minorities and wail about White racism do so(social standing) to improve their lot in life…again,this clearly shows what road he has chosen to improve his financial position. It costs them nothing to do so except lack of respect from those who find truth & honesty refreshing.Sadly,in todays world if you want to make lots of moolah you got to be politically correct…

Dr. Möbias

Was your post taken down?

razorrare

no it wasnt…i went to my activity profile and dug it up and repasted it here…post removed or deleted do not show up in your activity profile…by the way…thanks for posting the link for Jewish involvement in the slave trade.

JohnEngelman

Private corporations pay lip service to affirmative action. Nevertheless, they know that it is important to hire the most qualified employees.

Colleges and universities are not jeopardized by practicing affirmative action. When a student who was admitted under an affirmative action policy drops out or flunks out, the college or university still gets the tuition money.

C_C_Conrad

If a person on our side is unwilling to speak out against white genocide, they should be considered suspect. White genocide is the primary goal of our enemies. Intellectual gibberish – alone – is just half stepping.
………..
Jack’s War

http://MetaLane.wordpress.com WideBridge

An excellent, succinct, important principle.
Unfortunately, it is necessary to cut some slack to people in public. They simply can’t speak out too directly on these issues and still remain around to fight for the cause.

But there are people I have known, whom I took to be on our side, only for me to discover after quite a while of wasted time, that these people were empty, hopeless, demoralizing people made of jello, ready to show loyalty to the other side at the slightest drop of a hat.

C_C_Conrad

Oh yes, I agree. I never take this work to my job. But I can always buy some of our books as gifts for those willing to read them or make comments where possible. O ur work can be done in some manner.

………..
Jack’s War

JohnEngelman

One of the main arguments in The Color of Crime was that Latinos have these high crime rates. That means as Latin American immigration increases, America should grow more crime-ridden. But that isn’t happening. From 1990 to now, there’s been a reduction in crime, simultaneous with substantial [Latino] immigration. And so that link isn’t there. Taylor tended to downplay arguments like these that were inconsistent with his white nationalism.

– Ian Jobling

There is no mystery about the decline in the crime rate since 1980. It has happened because the prison population has tripled.

The verb “repudiates” implies a moral epiphany. I see Ian Jobling as an opportunist. He did not think he could get a job as an academic, He got one with American Renaissance. He did not like it and quit. Now he wants to be socially and professionally acceptable to liberals.

bluffcreek1967

If you want proof that Hispanics/Latinos have high crime rates and turn their neighborhoods into a third-world toilet bowl, simply visit some cities in LA County, such Pomona, Bell Gardens, All of East LA, Hollenbeck, Echo Park, Maywood, and on and on!

JohnEngelman

bluffcreek1967,

According to Neighborhood Scout Maywood, East Los Angeles and Bell Gardens have crime rates comparable to San Jose, California, which according to Morgan Quinto has the lowest crime rate of any large city.

I have usually had good experiences with Hispanics. I like the way they stand up to blacks.

http://www.newnation.org/ sbuffalonative

I clicked on the link, scrolled down, and my stomach dropped. I’m really going to have to work myself up to actually reading the entire piece. Just the first paragraph about “Hitler’s genocidal views” is beyond belief. An interview with the SPLC? This guy is very confused.

Bon, From the Land of Babble

Jobling is a foolish, useful idiot and running dog for the SPLC.

Jobling, from the SPLC interview:

I now realize that it was really misguided. I had erected this whole theory of white superiority based on very limited evidence and believed that non-white immigration was going to cause the United States to become a Third World country. That wasn’t happening and I eventually recognized that.

They’ll toss him aside when they’re done with him.

I, for one, will not forget what he said his this interview — to one of the most vile, anti-White organizations in the U.S.

Bon

http://www.newnation.org/ sbuffalonative

It’s difficult to understand how Mr. Jobling came to the conclusion he did in the above quote.

Did he simply draw this conclusion because of a single data point (falling crime rates)?

“I had erected this whole theory of white superiority based on very little evidence”.

What more evidence do you need other than to walk down a city street, watch your local news and read you local paper, and talk to your friends and neighbors who fill you in on the crime that doesn’t make the local news.

Mr. Jobling is clearly an insular personality type and as I said before, confused.

HamletsGhost

Jobling’s confession has the same whiff of the old Bolshevik style confessions by people who were eager to get back in Stalin’s good graces. It rarely worked, and even when it did it was usually temporary.

http://www.newnation.org/ sbuffalonative

Exactly.

I noticed his wikipedia page is gone.

I wonder if they promised him they’d remove it if he recanted.

Thomas Katt

The interview makes it clear that he was under enormous personal pressure from his family, and he never really had a change of opinion. He was never on board with holocaust revisionism, and has decided that the stress just isn’t worth it. Look at this paragraph:”It may be that there are innate, biological differences among the races. There is a large body of academic research on these differences, and this research is credible, which doesn’t mean that it won’t be overturned in the future. Scholars should not be persecuted for publishing research on these matters. But this subject is so explosive that, in our daily lives, we should ignore it to the extent that this is possible. We should make an effort to treat people equally and not impose our stereotypes on them. That’s where most Americans are today, and I’ve come to accept the common wisdom.”

This is hardly an SPLC true believer, even now.

razorrare

For the record,i shall not forget either…however,most of my animus is directed at Ian for his denigrating and vitriolic attack on the good character of Jared Taylor,David Duke,and Kevin MacDonald…

The New York Times article written by the Jewish author is
nothing less than an outright slander of Jefferson. I have read and taught
Jefferson for years and the truth is far different from what is portrayed in
the NYT. In fact, Jefferson agonized over the question of slavery, and tried
unsuccessfully for decades to reconcile his desire for equality and liberty
with the empirical fact of black inferiority that he witnessed with his own
eyes on a daily basis.

“There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners
of our people produced by an existence of slavery among us.”

“With what execration should the statesman be loaded, who
permitting half the citizens to trample on the rights of the other, transforms
those into despots.” “[Liberties] are a gift of God…they are not to be violated
but with his wrath… “ tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just…
The Almighty has no attribute which can side with us [on the question of
slavery]… I hope… under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation…” (pp. 214-215).

After citing the numerous observed inferiorities of blacks,
Jefferson then qualifies his observations by writing “The opinion that [blacks]
are inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination must be hazarded with
great diffidence…I advance it as a suspicion only that the blacks… are
inferior to the whites…” (p. 192).

On the subject of emancipation, Jefferson wrote “Until
more can be don for [blacks] we should endeavor… to feed and clothe them well,
protect them from ill usage, [and] require such reasonable labor only as is
performed voluntarily by freemen… the laws do not permit us to turn them loose…”
(p. 546).

This is hardly the “creepy hypocrite” and the “monster” portrayed
by the NYT’s Soviet-style propaganda.

handyandy2@optonline.net

Just more silly juvenile pratter. Jefferson was an excellent thinking man and saw the problems that were ahead for our nation because of the slave issue.
Years ago, I was listening to a black commentator on WBAI (NYC) radio late one Sat. night and he was going on about what a bum Jefferson was and the guy said one of the reasons Jefferson was a bum was that he was a Christian and Christianity taught that slavery was good. That was all I could take. I called the station and told the black guy (on the air) it wasn’t right that all Jefferson’s life he was castigated from every pulpit in America that he was a no good heathen and now that he’s laying in his grave all these years, he’s being castigated on late night radio for being a Christian. The black host was man enought to admit he might be wrong about the Christianity thing, but he held firm to his conviction that Jefferson was a no good. I said I have no problem with him thinking anything he wants of Jefferson or anyone else but he should get his facts straight before going after someone and that ended our conversation.

http://www.awpn.net/ Celestial Time

If you were here, I would buy you a beer or a beverage of your liking just for getting mad enough to correct them.

MerlinV

Jefferson was a Deist but approved of the moral teachings of Christianity.

Snowhitey

It’s always the same people attacking the greatest white men who ever lived. While they often praise people like Einstein as being beyond human, men like Jefferson are ridiculed and disrespected time and time again with misinformation and outright lies. Of course, anything printed by The New York Times is nothing even close to what legitimately could be called journalism. It’s simply another propaganda machine meant to disinform in an attempt to re-write Western history and change the perception of what white America really is. This creep’s family should have never been able to pass through the gates of Ellis Island.

http://MetaLane.wordpress.com WideBridge

“… New York Times … simply another propaganda machine …”

Wrong. It’s one of the most influential propaganda machines on the planet.

JohnEngelman

When The New York Times prints something that is not true it prints a retraction. Rush Limbaugh has built a career telling his dittoheads lies they want to believe. FOX News has won a lawsuit protecting its right to lie.

HamletsGhost

When have they ever published a retraction of Walter Duranty’s lies? Or revoked his Pulitzer?

cecil91

I would personally like to dig up the bones of every slaver who ever brought slaves to this country and shoot and hang them for the consequences of their actions.

The__Bobster

Their descendants are still alive and still destroying this nation.

Tim_in_Indiana

And that unfortunately includes plenty of white people.

MekongDelta69

The title of this article should read, “The Monster of The New York Times.”

The__Bobster

You have to be more specific.

So CAL Snowman

Thomas Jefferson is the single greatest American to ever live and one of the top 10 people to have ever lived on this planet. Finkelman? Why am i not surprised. I’m sure in his mind, Skaka Zulu was 100x the man Jefferson was. Good God my blood is boiling right now, i cant even think straight, time to log off.

C_C_Conrad

It’s interesting to note that anti-white writers of today like to attack the white men of passed generations, but they ALWAYS over look the blacks of the same generation that OWNED OTHER BLACKS. Of course, the dope heads in today’s colleges will not catch on to this. It’s so hard to see the world for what it is – when one has their head IN THEIR PANTS!
…………….

Jack’s War

http://www.facebook.com/brady.dillon.7 Brady Dillon

Ironically the most quoted paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is the least historically significant. That second paragraph is just a little 18th century enlightenment table talk to serve as filler for the introduction. The main point of the Declaration is how King George III violated the rights that Americans had by virtue of being free British subjects.

Der Typ

Never really thought about it, but I think you’re right. It wasn’t some grand declaration of mankind’s rights. It was a secessionist document which declared secession from a government which arguably was no worse than the current ones which govern us. By reading too much into the ‘hook’ of the document, and in doing so, taking attention away from the true nature of the document one is able to demean the dead while while disingenuously glossing over the dead man’s intention.
More plainly… they can scream racist hypocrite and no one thinks seriously about secession; you know the reason we light off fireworks every year in July. One has to admire how the left is able to define the argument. Like the Republican party is finding out, you will never win the debate if the left is allowed to establish the parameters of the debate.

FourFooted_Messiah

Well, a secesionist document was all it was supposed to be, correct? Colonial Americans did not want to be colonials any more, and wanted to separate from the Crown. Fair enough.

You didn’t really have to fight, you know. If you had waited out until George died, Vickie might have let you go peacefully enough. But that’s all water under the bridge – what happened, happened. and none of it can be undone, nor should it be.

At least you Americans didn’t get saddled with that nightmare we Canucks call “The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 1982″. I would really rather have the BNA back – even if it meant the Mounties could listen in on my phone convos without a warrant. I assume they do anyway.

JohnEngelman

When Thomas Jefferson died he was in debt, so he lacked the opportunity George Washington had to free his slaves. It is unfair to criticize him for not doing what his creditors would not have allowed him to do.

Thomas Jefferson’s moral failing was to promote and benefit from an institution that has burdened the United States with a population of people that he recognized was intrinsically less congenial to the constraints and requirements of civilization than are Caucasians.

http://www.newnation.org/ sbuffalonative

“…announcing the “self-evident” truth that all men are “created equal,”

I’ve long believed that Jefferson was referring to white men.

I usually bring up Jefferson when people are discussing Lincoln. Most believe that Lincoln and the civil war was the source of all our current problems but I trace them back to Jefferson.

The many quotes attributed to Jefferson about blacks just goes to prove my point. Jefferson KNEW how blacks were and yet he allowed them to stay and slavery to continue. Jefferson could have done great deal to minimize and even reverse the consequences of slavery but he didn’t. We’re all paying for his short-sightedness.

Francis Galton

Regarding your first point, I think all the liberal hand-wringers completely miss the boat when they carry on about the Founders’ alleged hypocrisy over slavery. It’s probably the case that the Founders (along with most other Whites back then) considered non-Whites–and certainly blacks–to be subhuman, and therefore more akin to pets or beasts of burden.

In the mental calculus of 18th-century Whites, to say “White man” would have been redundant, as only the White race would have had “men” within their ranks. I have little doubt that a completely honest original intent reading of “all men are created equal” would cover only White men.

KD_Did

i agree. Blacks were not considered humans in most people’s minds, for the reasons that Jefferson stated, lack of understanding, planning, and emotions.

FourFooted_Messiah

Yes, I think the document that says that (Declaration of Independence?) meant specifically white males (with white women as hangers-on).

Yes, your founding fathers were a bit weird and two-minded about blacks. I think Lincoln should have been allowed to send blacks to South America as planned.

And as for the Underground Railroad, Canada should have sent all blacks back to the US after the Emancipation Proclomation.

Tim_in_Indiana

Because Jefferson was a bit of a hypocrite regarding race, that makes him a “monster?” If so, then just about every liberal in the country is a “monster” as well. Slavery was the way the entire world worked in Jefferson’s time.

Of course, if Jefferson was such a monster, then it implies that we should disavow anything he had a hand in, including the Constitution. Methinks I detect the real motive behind Finkleman’s article.

He was not a hypocrite. He was a very smart man that knew his principles to freeing any slaves would only guarantee those slaves freedom if society was close to holding the same views as he did. Unleashing slaves into White society could have possibly destroyed the new nation, but it most certainly would have created a situation where there would be civil unrest and blacks would have been killed and probably put right back into slavery. He legitimately believed those slaves were better off with him than they would be unleashed into a society that did not want them to be free. Therefore, his so-called hypocrisy was a two-fold product using reasonable evaluation of what he thought should be versus what would be.

razorrare

He legitimately believed those slaves were better off with him than they would be unleashed into a society that did not want them to be free…
The society didnt want them to be free??? Wow,that is deep…why all the concern for blacks?? That concern should of been focused on poor White children that in many cases suffered much more than black slaves and their children…Read the book,They Were White and They Were Slaves…The Untold History of the Enslavement of Whites in Early America,by Michael A. Hoffman II…Rose pink sentimentalism for blacks while ignoring the suffering of Whites at the time is hypocrisy of the worst kind.

razorrare

Here is a sample i dug up out of my activity profile…got many more

Just shows the contempt which a powerful segment of our society continues to feel toward White working and poor people…gleefully reciting the hateful terms of abuse of White people such as “redneck” and “cracker” in newspapers & television…

If one were to attempt public articulation of such negative epithets against Black people as “……”(avoiding censor), it would be regarded as a sacriligious incitement to “hate crimes.”

A 1679 colonial census of Whites who fled slavery to scratch out an existence as subsistence and tenant farmers shows they had to flee to the worst land where they existed in extreme poverty,forming yeoman peasant communities in the hills.This White yeomanry was mocked and scorned by both the wealthy White planter elite as well as the negroes.Rich White plantation owners joined with the negroes in insulting White slaves and poor White people,referring to them as “poor-white earthscratching scum,” “crackers,” “redshanks,” “redlegs”(forerunner of the “redneck” racial insult current nowadays), “hillbillys” and “Scotland Johnnies.”

The servants were regarded by the planters as ‘white trash'(Eric Williams,Capitalism & Slavery,p.17).

Its important to know that White slavery existed in early America before black slavery and the reasons why the rich elite began to replace White slavery in early America with black slavery…

White Slave Rebellions…

Fear of rebellion by White slaves…indivvidual acts of rebellin by White slaves were constant and many slavemasters were killed.(Bridenbaugh, p.108).

“During the third quarter of the seventeenth century,impoverished Whitee laborers had kept the (Virginia) province on the brink of civil war.” (Ekirch, p.133).In the Caribbean colonies White slaves revolted by burning thee sugar cane of the slavemasters “to the utter ruin and undoing of their masters.”

Lured to colonial America with the promise of a teaching job,Thomas Hellier was instead enslaved as a field worker.That betrayal combined with the viciousness of his slavemaster’s wife led him to kill the slavemasters entire family with an axe in 1678.Hellier was believed to have been inspired by Bacon’s Rebellion two years before.

In 1676 Nathaniel Bacon led an uprising in Virginia.A small army of former White slaves and fugitive White slaves joined with the 30 year old Indian fighter Bacon against the house of Burgesses and the Governor,sparked by anger ay their own pernurious condition after having been cheated out of the head” acreage they were promised and enraged by the Royal governments apathy in the ffacee of murderous indian raids.There was great fear among the circle of the governor,William Berkeley,that the White slaves of the entire region would rise with Bacon and “carry all beyond remedy to destruction.”

Bacon’s rebels burned down the city of Jamestown,plundered the plantations and expelled Berkeley.Bacon died suddenly from dysentery,om Oct. 26,at the height of the insurrection. “…an incredible number of the meanest(poorest) of people were everywhere armed to assist him and his cause,”and these fought on through the winter,until the last of them were captured or killed by January of 1677.

Such combinations of White slaves and landless White freemen were referred to as a “giddy multitude” with the potential for overthrowing the dominance of the planter grandees.”Governor Berkeley despaired of ever subduing a White underclass of “people where six parts of seven are poor,indebted,discontented and armed.” (Ekirch, p.134).

Other White slave rebellions included the risings of 1634 which took 800 troops to put down,and 1647 in which 18 leaders of the White revolt were tortured and hung.

More White slave “plots” and revolts occurred in 1686 and 1692 including a rebellion by the “Independants,” an insurgent group of White protestant slaves and freedmen who revolted against Maryland’s Catholic theocracy.

Perhaps the most perversely eloquent testimony to the sort of rage and madness that was engendered by treating White men like beasts,was offered by a White slave in Maryland.Worked half to death,he stopped his labor,grabbed an axe and in the familiar pattern,headed for his master’s plantation house,where he confronted the man’s wife.His intent was not homicide, however.Laying his own hand on his mistress’ kitchen cutting block,he brought his axe down full force upon it.”Now make me work if you can!” he screamed,as he threw his severed hand at her.(Maryland Gazette, April 17,May 1, 1751).

The British colonial government was not adverse to calling on unlikely policemen to suppress White slave revolts: Blacks. Blacks were admitted to the colonial militia responsible ffor policing White slaves.The aristocratic planters had felt the necessity to “arm part of their blackmen” to assist in suppressing White slave revolts.(Beckles, “Rebels and Reactionaries,” p. 17).

Armed black militias patrolled the Carolinas from the end of the 17th century to at least 1710 when Thomas Nairne reported that blacks continued to be members of British colonial militias organizzed by local governments.

White rebellions foreshaowed the later switch from reliance on masses of White slaves to greater and greater importation of Blacks because of their pliability and passivity.But throughout the 17th and much of the 18th century,the tobacco,sugar and cotton colonies maintained a sizzable White slave plantation.Negro slaves simply cost too much to import and purchase.Whites were cheaper and more exxpendable–UNTIL THEY BEGAN TO FIGHT. “…planters,especially in the South,eventually elected to replace the restive White servants with the more identifiable and presumably less criminal black slaves.” (Van der Zee, p. 266).

razorrare

Ya know,if the Founding fathers were born in the fifties how many of them do you think would have held the views they had back then ,a time when there was no such thing as television to mold peoples minds and attitudes…how many of them would be for the browning of America and standing tall with the leftists and neo-cons and all the other riff-raff…politicians are politicians after all…

FourFooted_Messiah

Very interesting, thank you.

I already knew about the white slave trade to the New World – however, white slaves are usually code-worded “indentured servants”, which takes the sting out of the reality.

But I have visited the museum called “The London Dungeon”. Indentured servants were nothing more than slaves. Oh, they were supposed to be released after working off whatever debt they owed ….. but you know human nature, don’t you?

razorrare

White slaves in Britain were often-times children who were poor or orphanaged…they owed no debt…the term “apprenticeship” is a misnomer since the White children only manned the machines,which was not learning a skill.In Michael A Hoffmans book,They Were White and They Were Slaves devotes a chapter or two on workhouses and the Early Factory System in Britain during the Industrial revolution…thousands of White children in Great Britain were forced to work as human brooms inside chimney flues and led miserable lives and died horrid deaths.The condition of these chimney sweepers reveals more than any other form of White slavery,the attitude of the ruling class toward the most defenseless and oppressed segment of the “surplus” White poor….Sweeping chimneys was not a skill…
Samuel Roberts,in an 1834 essay on the boys used as chimney sweeps addressed his indignation toward the upper class British females who met in their sumptuously-appointed parlors to weep with tender-hearted solicitude over the latest accounts from America of oppression to negroes,while in the next room,scarred and burned 5 year old English boys enslaved as human brooms,were being forced up the lady’s chimney without a thought for their welfare…
“There is a race of human beings in this country,the Chimney Sweepers’ Climbing Boys…which…is more oppressed than the negroes in either the West Indian Islands,or in North America…These objects are all young and helpless.Their employment is ten-fold more horrible than that of any attaching to the negro slaves…A far greater number of them are crippled,and rendered deformed for life. A far greater proportion of them die in conseqquence of hard usage,while the horrible deaths from suffocation,burning,and other accidents,are in this case,beyond measure more numerous.And all of this at home,within our knowledge,before our eyes…in our very houses…How many of these poor infants…arive at years of maturity?…of those who die young,who knows or cares anything about them? the death of your own dogs would be more lamented…” (An address to British Females,pp.11-17).

razorrare

And another…

Breaking the chains of illusion..Historian Oscar Handlin writes that in Colonial America,White “servants could be bartered for profit,sold to the highest bidder for the unpaid debts of their masters,and otherwise transferred like movable goods or chattels…In every civic,social and legal attribute,these victims of the turbulent displacements of the 16th and 17th centuries were set apart.Despised by every other order,without apparent means of rising to a more favored place,these men and their children,and their children’s children seemed mired in a hard,degraded life…The condition of the first Negroes in the continental English colonies must be viewed within the perspective of these conceptions and realities of (White)servitude…(Origins of the Southern Labor System,”William and Mary Quarterly,April,1950,p.202).The history of enslavement in America as portrayed in the tunnel vision of the corporate media has focused exclusively on the enslavement of Negroes.The impression is given that only Whites bear responsibility for enslaving negroes and only negroes were slaves.In fact negroes in Africa as well as American Indian tribes such as the Cherokee engaged in extensive enslavement of negroes.The Cherokee indians owned large plantations on which they worked their negro slaves in gangs(R.Halliburton,Jr.,Red Over Black:Black Slavery among the Cherokee Indians,p.20)….White slaves were actually owned by negroes and indians in the South to such an extent that the Virginia Assembly passed the following law in 1670:”It is enacted that noe negro or Indian though baptized and enjoyned their own e ffreedome shall be capable of any such purchase of Christians..”(Statutes of the Virginia Assembly,Vol 2,pp.280-281).Negroes also owned other negroes in America(Charleston County Probate Court Records,1754-1758,p.406).While Whites languished in chains Blacks were free men in Virginia throughout the 17th century(Willie Lee Rose,A Documentary history of Slavery in North America,p.15;John Henderson Russell,Free Negro in Virginia,1619-1865,p 23;Bruce Levine,et al.,Who Built America?,vol 1,p 52).In 1717 it was proposed that a qualification for election to the South Carolina Assembly was to be the ownnership of one White man.”(Journals of the Commons House of Assembly of the Province of South Carolina:1692-1775,vol5pp294-295).Negroes voted in the Carolina counties of Berkeley and Craven in 1706 “and their votes were taken.”Levine,p.63).Blacks were toting guns or other weapons and going about in the service of wealthy landowners at the same time that tens of thousands of enslaved White men were forbidden arms.In 1678 one thousand negroes were armed by the planters and formed into a fighting militia for protection against the french(Carl and Roberta Bridenbaugh,No Peace Beyond the Line:The English in the Caribbean,1624-1690;pp.359-360).In Carolina in 1704,1707,1712,1738,and 1741 bills were passed authorizing armed negro militias in the service of the planters.(Warren B Smith,White servitude in Colonial South Carolina,p.98)…..many of the Unionist soldiers who made up the ranks of Lincolns armies in southern Ohio,western North Carolina,eastern Tennessee,southern Illinois,Kentucky and elsewhere were survivors of White slavery or descendants of White slaves. They did not view themselves as advocates of what then was referred to as racial “amalgamation.” Historically they regarded themselves as separatists and viewed the Southern Planters desire to spread negroes into California,Oregon and other territories as a grave threat to free White labor and the Old Testament principle of racial separation(Nehemiah 13:23-27;Ezra 10:10-14;Hosea 5:7).During much of the Civil War the political and military leaders of the Confederacy could not travel in certain parts of the deep South without armed escorts(Jeffrey Rogers Hummel,”The Civil War,”The United States at War Audio Classics Series,Part Two),for fear of attack from “Upcountry” Southern Whites who hated the planter aristocracy and the war they saw as being for the sole benefit of the expansion of the planters “infernal negroes.” Upcountry southern Whites consisted in large part of the survivors and the children of survivors of White slavery who resided in the hills,mountains and Piedmont regions of the South under frontier conditions.In the antebellum 19th century South,”A large number of White southerners lived in the upcountry,an area of small farmers and herdsmen…engaged largely in mixed and subsistence agriculture…little currency circulated,barter was common and the upcountry families dressed in ‘home-spun cloth,the product of the spinning wheel and the hand-loom.’This economic order gave rise to a distinctive sub-culture that celebrated mutuality,egalitarianism(for Whites)and …independence. “…mountain counties rejected secession from the outset.They believed the yeoman had no business fighting for a planter dominated aristocracy:’All tha want is to git you…to fight for their infernal negroes and after you do their fightin’ you may kiss their hind parts for o tha care.”(Eric Foner,Reconstruction:America’s Unfinished Revolution,1863-1877,pp11 and 13).Poor Whites had to be drafted into the Confederate army.As in the North ,where resistance to conscription was widespread,many Southern Whites saw the conflict as “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”Indeed,any slaveholder owning 20 or more Black slaves was exempt from military combat.From 1609 until the early 1800s,between one-half and two thirds of all White colonists who came to the New World came as slaves.Of the passengers on the Mayflower,twelve were White slaves(John Van der Zee,Bound Over,p.93).Hundreds of thousands of Whites had been enslaved during the colonial era in America while millions of others were too poor to afford even a mule,much less a black slave….Michael A Hoffman II from they Were White and They Were Slaves.the Untold History of the Enslavement of Whites in Early America.

http://www.awpn.net/ Celestial Time

Does the fact that Jefferson didn’t actually “hate” black people bother you?

http://www.awpn.net/ Celestial Time

The true intentions and views of Jefferson’s views on slavery are summed up nicely here:

Any man with integrity and wisdom won’t accept interpretations of words and actions from a critic with an obvious bias and agenda when you can see the words for yourself. Jefferson was a man with an insatiable desire for reading and writing, so there is no shortage of material that makes it clear why he believed what he believed, and why a few of his actions seemed contradictory.

Aside from the complete misinterpretations of Jefferson and the slavery issue, it is 100% accurate that Jefferson knew blacks were incapable of coexisting with Whites. He had no desire to spend a minute of his life trying to convince himself or anyone else that this view was wrong, simply because he was that convinced of his position. This was not a man of hate or an immovable fixation on skin color, because he did hold a view of the Indians being able to function in a White society, if only they were elevated in custom and. With blacks, this just wasn’t the case.

This is why I love Thomas Jefferson so much. His historical importance to freedom and reason is “self-evident” and immeasurable, his intelligence is unquestionable, his character a mountainous pinnacle so high that a thousand Finklemans working day and night to scale the mountain would be no closer to reaching the top today than they would twenty years from now, and Jefferson has been dead for for 185+ years.

razorrare

You denigrated Pat Buchanans character for having chosen a black woman to be his running mate so i am somewhat surprized all that love you got going for T.J. who according to this writer and others had a black woman as a mistress who had children by him…which would make him not only a slave owner but a miscegenationist as well…if true his biggest character fault by far…I am surprized no other posters have responded to that accusation as well.

http://www.awpn.net/ Celestial Time

Someone already mentioned the supposed miscegenation, and I responded with just about all that can be said.

Buchanan isn’t in the same hemisphere as Jefferson. Jefferson was smart enough to realize the dead ends and eventual destruction that would come from constructing walls of religion up in a society of REASON. He was without a doubt smart enough to use personal convictions as personal convictions, not divisive constraints. Buchanan isn’t that smart. You take Buchanan and walk away happy. I’ll take Jefferson, dead and all, and consider it a win. We’re both winners now.

ATBOTL

Someone in his family impregnated a pretty slave who was 3/4 white. She was like a Puerto Rican. Probably with better manners.

Peter

The fact is that many people want to pick and choose certain information when it comes to Thomas Jefferson. They decide to agree with the true facts that feel comfortable with, They disagree with the true facts that make them uncomfortable. for many people, in particular, AMREN supporters, the miscegenation facts fall into the latter category.

Jason

Excellent point. The fact is that miscegneation is nothing new in America. It has been going on since settlers arived in this nation. In fact, by the mid 19th century , there was so much interracial sexual activity taking place that some politicians were considering drafting laws to make it illegal. In fact. in a number of places, interracial sex and marriage was outlawed. That being said, I do beleive that Thomas Jefferson and many of our founding fathers engaged in miscegenation. But so what? This does not detract from the ingenuity and greatness that a number of them possessed. Flawed men can still be great men overall.

IanJMacDonald

Do not accept at face value the claim that Thomas Jefferson had a romantic relationship with Sally Hemmings. The DNA evidence shows merely that a Jefferson – probably Randolph Jefferson – fathered Sally’s children. American Renaissance has run articles debunking the claim that TJ was the father of Sally’s children. Do yourself a favor and do research in back issues of AmRen before you accept the lies of our enemies.

http://www.newnation.org/ sbuffalonative

His personal insights into the nature of Africans was dead on and so too were his predictions of whites and blacks living together as free men.

I just wish he would have tried harder to abolish slavery and repatriate blacks. His lack of decisive action and follow through gave us what we have today.

Ulick

“his deeply racist views, which he tried to justify through pseudoscience.”

Oh, the irony, of the “we’re all the same” crowd arguing that viewpoints to the contrary are based in pseudoscience.

JohnEngelman

Whenever someone complains about “racist views” and “pseudoscience” I know they are condemning valid scientific evidence that racial differences are innate.

http://www.awpn.net/ Celestial Time

The irony only thickens when you throw in the fact that Jefferson was an actual scientist in little things like agriculture and paleontology. Meanwhile, the claims of pseudoscience come from a man who—in its own universe of supreme irony—is a supposed specialist in constitutional law and “race and the law.”

Thomas Jefferson was probably a more competent lawyer as well, but we’re just talking about science, so I won’t go there.

The claim of pseudoscience is nothing more than a convenient means to discredit valid research and and substitute it with opinion and not verifiable scientific research.

http://www.awpn.net/ Celestial Time

There wasn’t much pseudo is Jefferson’s science of races. In fact, there wasn’t much science at all in that field at the time. His was an observation of the real world.

To me, that’s the best kind of science there is—the kind that works in the real world. The pseudosciences would be the ones with an infinite gap between their idealism and the need for tangible proof in the real world.

Robert

The fact is that while Thomas Jefferson was a great man and founding father, he was also a miscegenation engaging, elitist human being as well.

http://www.awpn.net/ Celestial Time

Any talk of miscegenation is simply guesswork, because there is ZERO proof that Jefferson would be guilty of that. All you have is a probability factor.

As for the elitist, well I find it a little contradicting that a man of great knowledge, wealth and talents would spend so much of his time and money working tirelessly to elevate his fellow man in areas of knowledge and liberty. Have you ever even looked up the definition of an elitist?

Cesare

Typical Marxism at work again. Tear down a nations heroes of yesterday and make them into the villains of today.

http://www.newnation.org/ sbuffalonative

The only true American saint we will be left with will be Martin Luther King JR..

Cesare

Don’t forget “the chosen one” Obama ! Pathetic isn’t it ? We have people who will worship someone like Barry Soetoro a.k.a. Barack Obama who’s background is just as questionable as his place of birth. Then you have the Communist trained MLK who attended the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle,Tennessee. It’s beyond ridiculous that this nation has been led to worship those who seek to destroy it. But just like Stalinism teaches, you create a new history by shattering the old.

Bon, From the Land of Babble

Another amoral, anti-White psychopath using the NY Times and White-created technology to demonize, vilify and dehumanize the White Race.

Nothing new here.

Of course, Muslims, Jews, and African blacks have no obligation to apologize or atone for their people’s roles in the slave trade; it is the White race that finally ENDED the practice of slavery in this world, in the places it had the power to do so, but through some sort of twisted logic, we Whites are collectively and perpetually guilty — ALL OF US — for the evils of slavery.

Modern Whites are not guilty of actions taken by others long before we were born.

As for Thomas Jefferson:

Thomas Jefferson was a consistent opponent of slavery his whole life. Calling it a ‘moral depravity’ and a ‘hideous blot,’ he believed that slavery presented the greatest threat to the survival of the new American nation. Jefferson also thought that slavery was contrary to the laws of nature, which decreed that everyone had a right to personal liberty. These views were radical in a world where unfree labor was the norm.

Jefferson’s belief in the necessity of ending slavery never changed. From the mid-1770s until his death, he advocated the same plan of gradual emancipation.

Who gives a crap what the NYT or any other marxist says about Thomas Jefferson.

Bon

Gep

The ignorant author of this article says TJ justified his views with “pseudoscience”.

Note that when a left-wing fundamentalist uses the word “pseudoscience”, what they mean is “any scientific statement at odds with left-wing orthodoxy”. Leftist nutzis fear science more than they fear Sarah Palin.

FourFooted_Messiah

The worst thing is, the charge isn’t even fair when talking about someone who lived long before the relevant science was even developed.

The mechanisms of biological inheritance was still a complete mystery in Jefferson’s day.

JohnEngelman

As more is being learned about the human genome it is becoming increasingly evident that racial differences in average intelligence and crime rates are innate.

The hysteria of those who maintain otherwise indicates that they no longer really believe in the orthodoxies they try to enforce. People do not get angry when beliefs they are confident in are challenged.

Eventually the constraints of political correctness will fall like the Soviet Union. I hope that Charles Murray, Jared Taylor, and others of like mind live long enough to be vindicated.

FourFooted_Messiah

I have stated here before that I dislike it when science is hijacked in the name of ideology – ANY ideology, and think that many leftist “evolutionists” are no better than creationists (or at least Special Creationists) when it comes to claiming that humans somehow became immune to evolutionary forces at some mysterious time in the past.

Even our modern, englightened policy of allowing, say, Down’s Syndrome sufferers to breed influences our _evolution_ as a race, and as a species – and not necessarily in a good or positive way. Evolution does NOT mean “inevitable progress to the better”, as “better” is a relative term.

Observer

Thomas Jefferson teaches us: “Question with boldness even
the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the
homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.”

In my opinion, we should honor Mr. Jefferson’s direction by
questioning freely even the existence of an existential presence in the United
States of America that may or may not, like, control the images on our TVs, the banks, the
Harvards, and would rather see anybody who questions them or their motivations
be subjugated as ‘haters’.

Mr. Finkleman provides for us a thought-provoking article. Thanks.

MikeofAges

Thomas Jefferson was a troubled and agonized patrician. Not only did he agonize over the issue of slavery, but consider his concept of the ideal citizen of the democratic republic. He was the yeoman farmer. The yeoman farmer was an independent self-made man self educated in civics and politics who worked his own land, and emphatically did not own slaves, or in any way believe in slavery. Interesting, it is, that this is emphatically what Jefferson himself was not. Even though he remained attached to the way of life and social class he was raised with, he always saw the ideal as somewhere else. Calling Jefferson hypocritical is not new. He was called so in his own time, and sometimes called himself a hypocrite. He was someone who believed that the world was not done, and would be someday different and better than what it was in his own time. That there are some African Americans who are descendants of a male Jefferson has been proven. Whether that person was Thomas Jefferson of not, no one knows though it certainly could be so. This is a question which probably never can be answered factually.

freddy_hills

A hypocrite is not someone who acts contrary to the views they espouse but someone who feigns to be other than they are. Jefferson never presented himself to be other than he was. He may have been morally inconsistent but he was not a hypocrite. But I would argue that he wasn’t even morally inconsistent. It was just that he left to many blanks unfilled. Allow me to fill in those blanks. Jefferson advocated political liberty and equality while realizing such a society was only workable provided it was homogeneous. Is that really so hard for the Paul Finkelman, the author of that article, to understand? Of course it is. Because it doesn’t coincide with his own views.

Stentorian_Commentator

I like how now it’s “proven” that Sally Hemings was Jefferson’s “mistress.” I understand the DNA data proved only that one of about 25 Jeffersons could have been the father of Sally Hemings’s children, including Jefferson’s brother, who had access to her.
It turns out “all men are created equal”, because it is fundamentally untrue, has caused much unhappiness in this country. I have often wondered why so many who patently did not believe the races were equal would agree to such a statement. I like Jefferson Davis’s attempted explanation, that they meant that no man had a right by birth to dominate another, but it seems like a stretch. More likely it seems to me that Jefferson and the Continental Congress were trying to impress the French into supporting them, and thought that such phrases, which make up a minuscule portion of the document, would excite the philosophes. It’s kind of like a lothario’s excuse, I just said that to get into her pants, I didn’t mean it. Unfortunately, words can be twisted.

rebelcelt

Paul Finkelman, what are the chances of this white gentile Christian becoming a citizen of Isreal? You hippocrite.

Bon, From the Land of Babble

There is nothing but pure evil and treachery in judging historical figures by today’s PC-enforced moral standards. But re-writing history to claim whatever they say it is, denouncing kulacks and burning the old books is a lefty hallmark.

Jefferson was voted to the Virginia legislature right out of his law studies with George Wythe in 1769. His first act in 1769-70 was to propose emancipation of Virginia’s slaves.

I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

–Thomas Jefferson

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

–Thomas Jeffeson

Oh the horror!! Jefferson questioning the welfare state, big government and the very notion that we should not take orders from the federal government!!

He must be vilified and denounced immediately, writings burned and every trace of him erased from history. Better to replace him with the wise teaching of Mao, Castro, Che, Stalin, Marx and Lenin and distribute textbooks written by Zinn.

They know what is best for US (but not you), right Mr. Finkelman?

Bon

Dr. Möbias

Paul Finkelman needs to take a closer look at slavery before he bashes Mr. Jefferson or any other white.

Though it’s unfair to judge historical personalities by today’s standards, I’d say there’s some truth in the article. How can you state that “all men are created equal” and own slaves at the same time? But now that we’ve exposed Jefferson, why stop there? I want to see Martin Luther King exposed, in the mainstream media, as well. I want to see Barack Obama, whose image will probably replace that of Jefferson on nickels, exposed too. But I’m not holding my breath – because the likes of Finkelman are also hypocrites.

If you do not consider Africans fully men, or in our terms evolved, then there is no conflict.

David Ashton

The lucid, “Augustan” prose of these great Americans is always a pleasure to read.
Nome sane, man?

IstvanIN

If the quotes attributed to Jefferson are in fact accurate his observations on the qualities of the African are as true today as they were then. He was right, I am afraid.

Anonymous Individual

I don’t care what this loony says. Thomas Jefferson is, and will always be, my hero

Guest@adl.org

Washington did not free his slaves until he was dead. Back when Philly was the capitol, Pennsylvania made slavery illegal. Washington made sure to ship all his slaves brought to Philly back to Virginia so as to prevent their emancipation. Anyway, they weren’t his slaves. they were the slaves owned by his wife’s first husband who Washington aquired upon marriage to the riches woman and 6th richest person in the colonies.

Guest@adl.org

Finkelman. Name says it all. The author’s last name is proof that nothing he says is true and that everything he writes is anti American anti White drivel just as the rest of the tribe writes and has written since 1900. The only thing I have against Jefferson and the rest of the founding fathers is that they did not deport the blacks right back to Africa. The founders, being slave owners and slave dealers, knew better than most the truth about blacks.

MAJ

This is truly the worst thing I have ever read in the NYTimes and over the last decade or so it has printed some awful things. It no longer even tries to hide its agenda.

Remember, slavery was legal when Jefferson lived. To equate a legal and not unusual activity then with today’s PC culture is grossly unfair, especially when it does so to nullify Jefferson’s achievements.

Also, Jefferson’s take on blacks were his views – is he not entitled to his beliefs based on observation and experience? The idiot author apparently thinks any view which varies from his is grounds for expulsion from the historical record.

The author might be surprised to learn that a majority of White Americans today hold views in line with TJ.

Guest@adl.org

and incapable of “Jefferson told his neighbor Edward Coles not to emancipate his own slaves, because free blacks were “pests in society” who were “as incapable as children of taking care of themselves.”
My opinon exactly. Not an opinion, the result of 50 years of observation.

I came across something interesting. Both the north and the south asked the Pope to make statements advocating for their cause during the civil war. Why they did this I have no idea. We were still a very staunch protestant anti catholic country at the time and how statements from the pope would have helped I can’t conceive.

Anyway, catholic bishops are supposed to send regular reports to the vatican on affairs in their districts. The bishop of Louisville Kentucky in one of his reports to the vatican wrote that it looked as though the north would win the war and the slaves would be freed. He thought the freeing of the slaves would be a disaster as they were “licentious and dissolute, idle and would be incapable of making a living and raising their children unless directedby Whites.”
How right that bishop was!!!

Bob Wallace

“his lifetime support for slavery”

Jefferson hoped slavery would end in his lifetime and tried to make the importation of slaves illegal. It failed by one vote. He also bought slaves to reunite families. He did more than any other American of that time to get rid of slavery.

As for slave-owners of those days freeing their slaves, how were they supposed to support themselves? Have a place to live? Feed themselves?

You cannot judge people in the past with modern standards. It shows not only a lack of education, but worse, a lack of imagination.